It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Vocabulary Cartoons, Elementary Edition!
This 254-page book contains “210 words every grammar student should know presented in an easy to read format,” as well as “21 review quizzes with matching and fill in the blank problems.”
So what’s special about that? Many vocabulary books have words children need to know, along with quizzes, right? Oh, but other books do not present those words in such a fun and innovative way! Take a look at this sample page:
With Vocabulary Cartoons, each word is presented with a “sound-alike” word, in this case the vocabulary word “amble” is presented with it’s sound-alike, “camel.” Each word also has a cartoon picture and phrase to help your student correlate the 2 words in a way they can remember. So the reminder sentence becomes, “Caravan CAMELS on long journeys rarely run; they AMBLE.” And to reinforce that idea, you have the cartoon picture. Of course, like most vocabulary books, you are given a actual definition, along with pronunciation and part of speech. They also give 3 contextual sentences, which I always find helpful.
Being the word guy that he is, Ben loved this book. My thought was to have him learn 2 words a day, and then take the quiz at the end of the week, since each quiz covers 10 words. But I found him constantly pulling this book off the shelf and just reading it, usually laughing a long the way, so it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, about once a week, I just orally went through the quizzes with him, and he always aced them! You could actually do it the way I intended and see if that works for you. Chances are, your kids will be pulling the book down to read more often as well. It’s just so fun.
Vocabulary Cartoons is geared toward grades 3-6. For younger students, you might go a bit slower, for older students, 2 words a day would be about right. If you have children gifted in language, expect a quicker pace. The word list is quite challenging, I think, with words such as genteel, prototype, rakish, and warble. I don’t believe these are words I knew by 6th grade anyway. You can see the word list here. You can also look at a few more sample pages, if you’d like.
Vocabulary Cartoons sells for just $12.95. If you have older students, they have a books for you as well, SAT Word Power and SAT Word Power II.
For more reviews on this product, take a peak at the TOS Crew Blog.
Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are those of myself and/or my son.
